A la playa!!

At 4:30 Wednesday morning, I got back from a 5 day trip to the beach, and I’m almost speechless. Almost. Actually, I’m really excited to talk about it!

This past week was the Ecuadorian holiday Carnaval , which if I’m correct, is a celebration to mark the start of Lent…sort of an extended Fat Tuesday. So everyone had Monday and Tuesday off from school or work, and since most of us don’t have classes anyway on Friday, it quickly turned into an extremely extended long weekend (which was much needed). However, we actually got pretty lucky, none of the exchange kids really realized the magnitude of Carnaval, and we figured we’d just be able to go to the beach like any other weekend, sort of on the fly, spur of the moment. NOT so. Once people told us to make reservations, I actually spend about 2 hours on the phone with hostals, all of them completely full. Once we finally found a place to stay, we had to go to about 3 different bus companies to find one that wasn’t sold out…so like I said, we were quite lucky that everything actually worked out. And after the slight mishap of getting my cell phone pick pocketed on the bus to catch the overnight bus we took to the coast, everything went better than expected.

The bus ride there was long, cramped, and sticky—we left Quito at about 8 pm Thursday and arrived in Puerto Lopez (a beach town to the south) at about 6:30 in the morning. After stumbling into our hostel and taking a quick power nap, we ate breakfast and spent 3 out of the next 4 days on the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. But also the hostel couldn’t have been better—it was run by really cool, friendly people, and it was $10 a night for a clean room with private bathrooms, hot water, and a ballin breakfast of rolls, eggs, fruit salad, and coffee…and hammocks!! Also, our hostel-mates happened to be the squad of extra police that they decided to bring in to control the festivities so I guess we were either super secure there, or suffocated by corruption (however you want to look at the Ecuadorian police..) The beach in Puerto Lopez itself was super crowded (picture Wrightsville on memorial day weekend or something), but about 20 minutes down the road was the entrance to Machalilla National Forest, the only national park on the coast. Here, with our student visas, we paid a $5 entrance fee good for 4 days, and had free reign to explore the 3 beaches nearby: Los Frailes, Tortuga, and La Playa Negra (with black sand!!). The beaches were so deserted and pristine, and I’d never been anywhere with such a striking combination of rocky capes and cliffs (like northern Cali) with long stretches of sandy coastline like in North Carolina. The surf was safe but exciting, and every day we packed a lunch from in town, and spent the day reading, relaxing, swimming, exploring, throwing a Frisbee…etc. paradise. And at night back in Puerto Lopez we ate ridiculously cheap and fresh seafood and experienced the carnaval night life with some of the guys that worked at our hostel.

One of the days (Sunday), we went to Isla de la Plata, an island 42 km off the coast of Puerto Lopez that’s apparently the “poor man’s Galapagos” with a similar geological history and so a lot of the same wildlife. It was about a 2 hour boatride out there, and then we went on some hikes, ate lunch, and snorkeled! After snorkeling, the tour group that we went out there with (which was run by one of the owners of our hostal), sent the rest of the (less cool…) groups back on other boats because one of our motors broke and we stayed hanging out on the boat, jumping from the top and making friends with the crew. With the broken motor it was a slower ride back but really relaxing and beautiful. Also, when the crew found out I knew how to drive a boat using all the navigational tools and depth readers, etc they made me la capitan for about an hour (thanks Captain Ford!)

The last morning I got up early and went for a bike ride with one of the guys who ran the hostel. We biked (slash pushed most of the way) to the top of this mountain in the national park, and from there you could see everything—the mountains to the east and the pacific ocean out to the west. Whoa. Then it was a really fast, windy downhill coast back to the main road. Whoa. We spent the rest of that day on the beach in Puerto Lopez just to check it out, and it was the only day we had any rain, which for me is always a good sign if it rains on the day you’re supposed to leave the beach. That night after packing up, eating one last bowl of $2.50 ceviche, and saying goodbye to our new “family” in Puerto Lopez, ie. The people at the hostel, we left on the overnight bus at about 8 for the trip back to Quito. And where the last one had been suffocatingly hot, this one was sub artic, but about 2 hours shorter for no apparent reason really…so we got to Quito at 4:30 am exhausted, sunburned, and satisfied. And speaking of the sunburn, a) they aren't lying when they say sun on the equator is actually stronger...spf 15 ain't gonna cut it, and b) despite how cheap everything else is here, since gringos are the only ones buying sunscreen they jack the price of that incredibly high...i payed $14 for a regular sized bottle the other day!!! but don't worry mom, even the extreme tightwad in me isn't willing to risk 3rd degree burns..

So as is the life of study abroad, I had classes Wednesday and Thursday before the start of another 3 day weekend…tough huh? On Thursday afternoon I witnessed a HUGE protest in the park against Correa the president, we’ll see what happens on that front. Last night I went with my family to the birthday party of a 10 year old cousin, complete with make your own pizza and a Hanna Montana birthday cake. Then we watched Forrest Gump with all the cousins…did I even leave my family in the states?! JK MISS YOU GUYS TONS!

Anyway, enjoy the last week of February everyone!
Love,
Kate